Elon Musk says he will show off Tesla’s purpose-built “robotaxi” prototype during an event October 10, after scrapping a previously-planned reveal on August 8 earlier this month. Musk said Tesla will also show off “a couple of other things,” but didn’t explain what that meant.
The comments, made on Tesla’s second-quarter earnings call Tuesday, largely confirms Bloomberg’s original report about the delay, including that it was driven by Musk’s desire to redesign certain elements of the prototype. Musk confirmed earlier this month that he requested an “important design change to the front.”
“Moving it back a few months allowed us to improve the robotaxi, as well as add in a couple other things for the product unveil,” Musk said during the call.
Not much is publicly known about what Tesla will show off, though there was an illustration of a small robotaxi prototype in the biography of Musk written by Walter Isaacson in 2023. Musk has spoken about making the vehicle available to people through Tesla’s app, similar to how Uber and Lyft operate. He’s also claimed Tesla owners will be able to put their own cars on the shared network once the company makes its Full Self-Driving software advanced enough to handle all driving — something it is still far from accomplishing, despite the name.
Musk has spent years promising that Tesla would deliver fully self-driving vehicles. But he has struggled to execute on the idea, and as a result Tesla is being sued by owners and investigated by numerous government agencies.
Asked on the call when Tesla would be able to offer its first unsupervised robotaxi ride, Musk said he believes it could be possible by the end of this year. But he added that it also could happen in 2025, and that he is “overly optimistic” with his predictions.
